Two British troops have died in Afghanistan, bringing the British death toll
in the conflict level with that of the 1982 Falklands War.
Tory leader’s attacks on PM’s handling of the scandal risk jeopardising the
trial of three Labour MPs, Harriet Harman warns.
Proposals to encourage people to inform on benefit cheats are being examined by Labour’s manifesto team
People who inform on benefit cheats could be given a share of the resulting savings to the state under proposals being examined by Labour’s manifesto team.
The idea has been put to Ed Miliband, Labour’s manifesto co-ordinator, by Jim Murphy, the Scottish secretary, as a way of making life harder for benefit cheats.
It has also been discussed by Downing Street as it looks at ways to bolster its Respect agenda, designed to persuade sceptics that the state is on the side of hard-working families.
Although some will see the proposals as wildly impractical or socially divisive, others say they will encourage white, working-class voters to stay loyal to Labour.
No 10 is said to be attracted to the idea as symbolic of a tough contract on fairness in which Labour offers support for those genuinely in need on the condition that they play by the rules.
In Labour’s successful byelection campaigns in Glenrothes and Glasgow North-East, Murphy was struck by how much Labour voters wanted to hear a message that emphasises “firm but fair rules”.
One Glasgow resident told Murphy he was fed up with going to work at eight in the morning knowing the man in the flat above was not – but would still be keeping him awake at two in the morning.
Murphy believes there is a large constituency that would like to see the government reward those who give tipoffs about cheats, pointing out that the proposal is designed to end antisocial behaviour that increases the taxes other people pay.
In Australia, billboards urge people to “dob” on their cheating mates, leading to an upsurge in tipoffs.
The government already has benefit hotlines where suspected cheats can be shopped, but this is the first time a minister has suggested that anyone who reveals a benefit cheat might secure a proportion of the money recovered, or that there should be a financial incentive. Critics claim it would lead to malicious accusations and difficulties in deciding whether the person that revealed the cheat was responsible for a benefit cheat being caught.
The government’s free and confidential benefit hotline started gathering systematic information only in 2007-08. The lines are open 7am until 11pm, seven days a week.
Last year, the Department for Work and Pensions claimed to have caught 56,493 benefit thieves.
It claims more than 677 calls a day were made to the hotline and a further 476 benefit thieves reported online every day.
Some critics have claimed that the hotlines reduced social cohesion and made innocent citizens the victims of deranged neighbours determined to cause misery.
The DWP convicts around 6,000 benefit cheats each year. Figures for 2005-06 show benefit expenditure cost £116bn.
Every £1bn of fraud and error is estimated to cost £35 for every taxpayer.
The DWP claimed to have cut the cost of fraud, as opposed to error, from £2bn to £1bn a year, but subsequently the department appeared to recognise that its sample size was so small that the figures might not be reliable.
Murphy’s tough approach is in part credited with Labour leading the SNP in Holyrood polling for the first time since Alex Salmond became first minister.
Labour has also stretched its lead in Scotland’s Westminster seats to 16 points, according to a poll commissioned by the Glasgow Herald.
Since an identical poll in October, there has been a sharp change in voting intentions for the Scottish parliament. Labour has gone from trailing the SNP by eight points on constituency and regional list votes, to a lead of two and seven points respectively.
Compared with October, the latest poll shows Labour in Scotland’s Westminster seats up three points to 42%. The SNP was up one point to 26%, compared with an 18% share in 2005. The Conservatives are unchanged on 18%.
Carmaker recalls more than 220,000 vehicles over brake problems as media reports move could spread worldwide
Toyota is to recall more than 220,000 hybrid cars in Japan, including its Prius model, it confirmed today, while media reports claimed the recall could spread to more than 400,000 hybrids around the world.
The move comes amid complaints in Japan and the US over a brake defect that can cause temporary brake failure at low speeds, particularly on bumpy or slippery surfaces. The world’s biggest carmaker is already faces criticism over the recent recall of more than 8m cars worldwide affected by potentially dangerous acceleration problems.
Reports today said 223,000 hybrid cars in Japan would be recalled, while an internal document obtained by Reuters said the recall would be extended to 436,000 cars worldwide. A global recall could affect almost 7,000 owners of the third-generation Prius in the UK.
Toyota announced the Japanese recall across four hybrid models – the 2010 Prius model, the Prius PHV, the SAI and the Lexus HS250h. But Reuters said the report, which has not been made public, showed the firm would recall a further 213,000 cars outside Japan, including 150,000 in the US.
Toyota’s president, Akio Toyoda, and its executive in charge of quality control, Shinichi Sasaki, were due to give details of the latest recall in Tokyo this afternoon.
The carmaker is battling to save its reputation, particularly in the key US market, where it faces lawsuits linked to accidents, an investigation by highway authorities and mounting criticism of its handling of the crisis by the Obama administration.
Toyoda, the grandson of the company’s founder, attempted to reassure US drivers in an op-ed article in the Washington Post. “I have spoken with US transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, and given him my personal assurance that lines of communications with safety agencies and regulators will be kept open, that we will communicate more frequently and that we will be more vigilant in responding to those officials on all matters,” he said.
The recall of the latest version of the Prius in Japan is expected to be followed by similar measures in the US and Europe. The model is sold in about 60 countries, with sales totalling just over 300,000 since the first models were rolled out last spring.
Toyota said it had fixed the software glitch responsible for the braking problem in the Prius models that went on sale since last month, but had yet to do repair models sold before then.
Analysts accused the firm, which waited a week to discuss the brake defect after the first complaints were reported in the media, of being in a state of denial.
“Listening to management now, I think they still think there isn’t a real problem with the Prius,” Christopher Richter, auto analyst at CLSA Asia Pacific Markets, said before the Prius recall was announced.
“But at this point you don’t resist, because right now any Toyota vehicle that is perceived to have a problem you just say, ‘We fix it.’ That’s how you win back trust.”
The most senior British police officer ever convicted was found guilty of arresting a web designer in a dispute over money
The most senior British police officer ever convicted of corruption offences was starting a four-year prison sentence yesterday after a jury found he had tried to frame an innocent man and told a series of lies in an attempt to cover up his abuse of office.
Ali Dizaei, a commander with Scotland Yard, was convicted of falsely arresting a web designer in a dispute over money and then lying in official statements when he claimed he had been assaulted and threatened by the man.
Dizaei’s 25-year police career will end with him being drummed out of the force in disgrace and almost certain to lose his pension after a clash in the street outside a restaurant which saw him abuse his authority as one of the Britain’s top officers.
Nick Hardwick, chair of the IPCC, said: “Dizaei behaved like a bully … The greatest threat to the reputation of the police service is criminals in uniform like Dizaei.”
Dizaei, 47, remained defiant and told the Guardian the case was “completely outrageous and a fit-up”. He said that he had been pursued by the authorities, who had a “vendetta” against him.
Dizaei was an outspoken critic of the police on race, leader of the National Black Police Association (NBPA), and a key figure in a race war that erupted at the top of Scotland Yard in the summer of 2008.
He had been cleared of criminal charges in 2003 and returned to duty despite Scotland Yard having suspected him of serious offences. That inquiry was intensified after MI5 had suspicions that the Iranian-born officer was a danger to national security.
In the case that ended yesterday at Southwark crown court, the crown alleged that on 18 July 2008, Dizaei had clashed with Waad al-Baghdadi, who claimed the police commander owed him £600 for a website he had designed for him.
Dizaei arrested the 24-year-old then, using the special call sign given to him as a commander – Metro 35 – called for back-up to take his prisoner away. He claimed to have been assaulted and poked in the stomach with the mouthpiece of a shisha pipe. Dizaei filled out official statements and maintained his false account on the witness stand.
Baghdadi spent 24 hours in a cell and six weeks on bail before it was decided he would not face charges. Scotland Yard handed the case over to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which investigated Dizaei. He becomes the most famous scalp obtained by a watchdog that has faced questions about its effectiveness.
Last night Baghdadi told the BBC: “I’ve had a very, very difficult past two years of my life, trying to stand up to this man with all of his connections.”
The jury were unanimous in finding Dizaei guilty of misconduct in public office and attempting to pervert the course of justice, deliberating for two hours and 31 minutes following a four-week trial.
Before he was sentenced, Dizaei told the Guardian that the case was a way of “bullying” him out of the police. “Nobody is going to bully me out of a job, not the director of public prosecutions, not the IPCC and not the Metropolitan Police Authority.”
Dizaei said if he had been acquitted he would have returned to work and dismissed the case against him, saying this trial had proved more of a strain than his first, in 2003: “This is worse. It is purely a personal vendetta by the IPCC and CPS. The IPCC did not like the challenge I and the NBPA made to the way it dealt with our members. The CPS could never take the egg off their faces after the last time.”
Sentencing Dizaei, the trial judge, Mr Justice Simon, said the length of the sentence had to contain “an element of deterrent” given the “grave breach of public trust and abuse of your authority as a commander in the Metropolitan police”.
The judge accepted Dizaei was “an exceptional officer” who had received glowing performance reviews but said he had arrested Baghdadi for “an assault that never occurred”.
Wearing a smart suit and glasses, the man once tipped as a possible head of British policing was sullen, simply picking up his overcoat as he was taken down to start a four-year sentence.
Scotland Yard’s commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, accepted the case had damaged the reputation of British policing. “Bearing in mind his rank and disgraceful behaviour he should not be surprised at the severity of his sentence,” he said.
Speaking outside court, Gaon Hart of the CPS said: “Mr Dizaei’s corruption, which would have been deplorable in any police officer, was all the more so given his position. The public entrust the police with considerable powers and with that comes considerable responsibility.”
In Washington they’re not sure who’s in charge. In Brussels they’re squabbling. Ian Traynor reports on the EU’s crisis of confidence
Sitting in parkland in the shadow of the European parliament, the Bibliothèque Solvay is that rare thing in Brussels’s dismal European quarter – a pretty building.
But when heads of government or state from 27 countries meet here on Thursday under their new president, Herman Van Rompuy of Belgium, they will have little time for the art nouveau fittings or for the old books lining the wood-panelled walls of the 1902 library.
The first EU summit under Van Rompuy’s stewardship sees Europe slumped in a mood of unusually persistent gloom. Van Rompuy, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and the rest are in charge of a Europe engulfed by a sense of defeatism and decline and exhausted by nine long years of trying to construct a new European regime. The reasons for the ennui are clear. According to senior officials, analysts, and diplomats in Brussels, Paris, London and Berlin, Europe suddenly seems to matter a lot less in the world. Additionally, its leaders appear unsure of how to tackle their single currency’s biggest ever crisis, and are engaged in petty power struggles and point-scoring over how to use the EU’s new rulebook – the Lisbon treaty.
“There are a lot of blame games,” said a senior European diplomat. “A lot of handwringing and bitching. No one is coming through to lead. It’s not a pretty picture at all and it looks pathetic to the rest of the world.”
Since EU leaders last met in Brussels before Christmas, the mood has soured. For the Europeans who claimed for two years to be leading the world on climate change, the global warming summit in Copenhagen was the gamechanger, a moment when the global balance of power tilted and relegated the EU to the second division.
“What we saw in Copenhagen is that Europe does not count,” Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies, told a conference of Brussels thinktanks.
“For good or for ill,” a senior European official told the Guardian, “the message that Copenhagen sent is that Europe is not at the table. The fact of the matter is that Europe’s leaders were taking a coffee and [Barack] Obama visited them at the coffee break. But he negotiated with others.”
The Europeans are struggling to recover from that blow.
For the past 18 months, the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, has been warning that Europe faces being sidelined in a “G2″ world run by the US and China unless the EU steps up.
Miliband’s worst fears materialised when Obama held his press conference at the end of Copenhagen and deleted Europe from the script.
“If the G2 world was approaching, suddenly there it was,” said the diplomat. “A seminal and symbolic moment.”
In the library on Thursday, Van Rompuy is to hold a postmortem. What went wrong and what are we going to do about it, he will ask his fellow national and EU leaders. The way they have written the script, Van Rompuy himself, as the first permanent president of the European council, is part of the solution. Most others are not so sure.
The former Belgian prime minister’s rise is the product of the Lisbon treaty, which in turn is a wordier and more complex version of the ill-fated European constitution which had to be binned because of voter rejection in France and the Netherlands.
The treaty came into force in December and is supposed to cure Europe’s malaise by streamlining decision-taking, simplifying procedures, boosting common foreign policy, and supplying strong and coherent leadership.
It is early days, but the new regime has started not with a bang but with a whimper. Where there was to be coherence, there is confusion. Where there was to be clear leadership, there are turf wars and rival presidents.
Obama announced last week he was too busy for a slated summit with the Europeans in Madrid in May. When Mongolia’s leader, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, visited Brussels last week he was nonplussed by the plethora of “European presidents” whom protocol prescribed he must meet (there are currently four).
The US state department made plain that one reason for Obama’s absence is that, under Lisbon, it was not clear with whom the Americans should be dealing.
Matthias Matthijs, a Washington-based academic who is visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bologna Centre, said the post-Lisbon fiasco over who is in charge may take a year to sort out. “There is a sense in Washington that Europe needs to get its act together,” he said. “It’s another missed opportunity for Europe. They do not have anyone to put on the world stage.”
That person is supposed to be Van Rompuy or Catherine Ashton, the new EU foreign policy chief also created by the Lisbon treaty.
But no one appears to have told the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who took on the rotating six-month presidency of the EU last month determined not to forfeit any of its perks and privileges to Van Rompuy who, under the Lisbon terms, chairs all summits of EU leaders.
The Spanish government website bragged that the Obama summit in Madrid in May would be a highlight of its presidency, though it forgot to consult the Americans. In addition, in the next four months alone, the Spanish have scheduled themselves to host as many as 10 EU summits with other parts of the world.
This appetite for summitry sits oddly with perceptions of European weakness. But it is of a piece with the European insistence on disproportionate attendance at the big global pow-wows.
In the three G20 summits of the past 18 months called to tackle the financial crisis, Europeans have taken up eight of the 20 places, seeming to confuse status and numbers with power. There is one place each for the Americans and Chinese, while the Europeans were represented by the Germans, British, French and Italians, plus José Manuel Barroso, president of the European commission, plus whoever had the rotating EU presidency (the Swedes or the Czechs). Then the Spanish and the Dutch, neither formal members of the G20, clamoured for invitations and were given seats.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Antonio Missiroli of the European Policy Centre in Brussels. “One third of the G20, a half of the G8, almost one half of the UN security council. There are too many Europeans.”
Amid this crowded field of leaders, leadership itself is at a premium. Increasingly in Europe, particularly as a result of the Lisbon treaty and the uninspiring choice of Van Rompuy and Ashton as the EU’s summit and foreign policy chiefs, power lies in national capitals.
Diplomats and analysts complain that those national leaders are not up to the task of pooling authority and projecting power effectively on the world stage – another purported aim of the Lisbon regime.
Of the figures who matter most, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has been invisible since winning a second term last autumn. Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi raises only smirks. Gordon Brown is credited with trying hard on the world financial crisis but is seen as a lame duck, while it is feared across the EU that David Cameron and William Hague, by contrast, will conspire to subvert rather than project European leadership. The sole figure to command respect for his political will and energy is Nicolas Sarkozy of France. But he is also viewed warily as too mercurial.
Cameron shock
EU diplomats expect a prime minister Cameron to try to boost the “special relationship” with the White House at the expense of European power. They add he could be in for a shock since the Obama administration could tell Cameron that the best thing he could do to support America is to get more engaged in strengthening the EU.
Günter Verheugen, Germany’s outgoing European commissioner, painted a picture this week of tired strategic division, confusion, and hesitancy at the heart of Europe.
“Within the EU there is no idea of where they’re going. There’s no agreement on what the borders of the EU should look like one day and no agreement on how to define our role in the world,” he told Der Spiegel news magazine. “We want the Americans to take us seriously as partners. But first we need to work on our capacity for partnership … The Americans expect more global engagement from us, but we’re not ready for that.”
On Afghanistan or Iran, say senior diplomats, the Europeans are at odds and almost certain to frustrate any hopes in Washington of common, tough, and risky policies.
The backdrop to the black mood in Brussels is economic. The fallout from the banking collapse in the form of colossal public debt levels and budget deficits is tying the hands of governments. The short-term troubles are coupled with the longer-term scenario of shrinking and ageing populations, a Europe condemned to genteel and geriatric decline while the emerging economies boom.
Hopeful noises
“We face fiscal challenges never seen before, of an unprecedented magnitude,” said Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of the Bruegel economics thinktank.
Optimism is rare. It exists, but tends to be the preserve of outsiders watching the EU. To discern more hopeful noises, you have to cross the Atlantic.
US economists and Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz appear sanguine about Europe, with Krugman arguing recently in the New York Times that the European welfare state and social market economy have survived the financial crisis well and represent a more successful and enviable model than America’s.
Steven Hill, a director at the Washington-based New America Foundation, has just published a book, Europe’s Promise, which argues that “the European way is the best hope in an insecure age”.
He dismissed talk of the EU being “marginalised” in a G2 world. On the contrary, he emphasised that the Obama White House was under pressure from the EU on climate change and financial regulation. “This, of course, is the exact opposite of the view that ‘Europe is irrelevant’. Europe is actually hyper-relevant,” he said. “Obama knows that Europe is leading in these ways, and he would like to follow to some extent, but he is having a hard time delivering.”
Such views appear Panglossian to the gloom-mongers of the continent. According to French political philosopher Pierre Manent, Europe is a fair-weather union which “vanishes into the horizon” in a crisis. “We only look to Europe when everything is going well,” while the “outside world views the EU as a union of decadent imperialists who make a virtue of their powerlessness,” he said in a recent lecture.
On Thursday, Van Rompuy hopes to reverse this drift towards perceived impotence by locking the leaders in the library and knocking heads together.
He hopes that the humiliation at Copenhagen and other setbacks can serve as a wake-up call.
Additional reporting by Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Lizzy Davies in Paris
The battling bosses
Laying claim to the championship title of European president is a bit like sorting out who rules as world heavyweight boxer, quips a senior European diplomat.
In the ring, there’s the WBA and the WBC, the IBA or the WBO, all laying claim to be honouring the true heavyweight champion of the world and usually begging to differ.
In the EU, thanks to the Lisbon Treaty, we now have the European council president, Herman Van Rompuy of Belgium, as well as the European commission president, José Manuel Barroso of Portugal, starting a second five-year term. Then there is the residual rotating six-month EU presidency, held since last month by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, prime minister of Spain. And finally, there is Jerzy Buzek, a former Polish prime minister who is president or speaker of the European parliament.
The early impact of the Lisbon regime has been embarrassing, generating lots of heat and little light. Rather than a seamless transition to a new and simple regime of identifiable power vested in one person, there is bickering, brinkmanship and unclear lines of authority.
Famously, if apocryphally, Henry Kissinger said he did not know who to call if calling “Europe”. The Lisbon Treaty was supposed to settle that. Instead, the answer remains as clear as mud.
Van Rompuy answers to EU heads of government and organises and chairs all their summits. His first, especially convened by him, is in Brussels on Thursday. But he is being undermined by Zapatero, who wants to make the most of his six months as EU president. He has called 10 bilateral EU summits with other parts of the world, to be held in Spain, although they are now all supposed to be under Van Rompuy.
Barroso, head of the commission, or EU executive, and the Belgian are also said to be squabbling over powers, budgets, and assets.
The optimists say the new regime will take a while to bed down, but will then function smoothly and more effectively. The pessimists say the new regime took so long to agree – almost nine ill-starred years – that it is already past its sell-by date, but that no one has the stomach to suggest anything better.
The outcome is there is no heavyweight champion at all. Europe is punching well below its weight.
Ian Traynor Brussels
Chilcot inquiry told that the ‘problem of leaks’ was used to stop attorney general Lord Goldsmith addressing ministers
Jack Straw made clear in evidence to the Iraq inquiry today that he believed there was absolutely no need for the cabinet to be told of the attorney general’s doubts about the legality of the invasion.
The inquiry has heard that a week before the invasion, on 13 March 2003, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, told Straw that he might need to tell the cabinet that “the legal issues were finely balanced”, documents released by the inquiry today reveal. Straw, then foreign secretary, advised him not to do so, warning of “the problem of leaks from the cabinet”; the inquiry has heard it was never told of Goldsmith’s doubts.
Summoned back to the inquiry today, Straw said the cabinet knew there was an intense debate about the legal and moral issues. His appearance coincided with a US TV interview with Tony Blair, in which he attacked the hunt for a “conspiracy” and a “scandal” over his decision to commit British troops to the war.
Straw told the inquiry that the cabinet included a number of “strong-minded people”, among them Gordon Brown, John Prescott, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke and Margaret Beckett: “None of them were wilting violets; their judgment was that it was not necessary to go into the process by which Peter Goldsmith came to his view. I don’t recall cabinet as a whole receiving legal advice on the matter,” Straw told the inquiry. “All [the cabinet] wanted to know was: is it lawful or is it not lawful?” What was required in the end was “essentially a yes or no decision” from the attorney general, he added.
The inquiry has heard how Sir Michael Wood, the FO’s legal adviser, and his deputy, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, said an attack was unlawful without a fresh UN resolution. In a memo, Wood warned Straw: “Force without security council authority would amount to a crime of aggression.” Straw, now justice secretary, replied: “I note your advice but I do not accept it.”
Goldsmith was persuaded that an invasion was lawful only after discussions with Straw and with Bush administration lawyers, the inquiry has heard. That was even though the US interpretation of international law was different from the British interpretation, it was told.
Straw said today he took the view a new UN resolution was unnecessary because of his intimate knowledge of diplomatic negotiations leading up to the last resolution, 1441, unanimously agreed in November 2002. The Bush administration had made clear, Straw said, it would not go back to the UN for a decision. The president had decided to invade “come what may” by early 2003, the inquiry heard.
Panel member Sir Lawrence Freedman told Straw he “might want to check” notes of his conversations with then US secretary of state Colin Powell to confirm this account. Freedman indicated that documents seen by the inquiry – but not made public – showed that Bush planned to attack Iraq even if chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said Saddam Hussein was complying with resolution 1441.
In sometimes testy exchanges over why the US insisted on an invasion in March 2003, and why the Blair government went along with it,, Straw made clear it was political. “A big problem with the US was from the neocons,” he said, referring in particular to the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
Asked whether Iraq was the UK’s “choice of targets” because it was America’s, Straw said it was the target of both. He denied writing a last-minute letter to Blair suggesting alternatives to invading.
On Fox news today, asked why the UK had had a succession of such probes into the invasion, Blair said: “Partly because we have this curious habit – I don’t think this is confined to Britain actually – where people find it hard to come to the point where they say: we disagree; you’re a reasonable person, I’m a reasonable person but we disagree.
“There’s always got to be a scandal as to why you hold your view. There’s got to be some conspiracy behind it, some great deceit that’s gone on, and people just find it hard to understand that it’s possible for people to have different points of view and hold them … for genuine reasons. There’s a continual desire to sort of uncover some great conspiracy, when actually there’s a decision at the heart of it.”
Claim of separation ‘false as well as intrusive’, say lawyers, as Pitt and Jolie begin action in London high court
As Hollywood’s most famous power couple, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are used to every aspect of their life together being dissected in the world’s media, whether it’s rumours over yet another adoption, the meaning of a new tattoo, or their feelings about the other’s exes.
But when the News of the World ran a front page story last month declaring the couple were splitting up after six years and as many children, and dividing their £205m joint fortune, the pair decided enough was enough, and wrote to the paper to demand an apology for these “false and intrusive allegations”.
The tabloid refused to retract the story, or apologise, according to Pitt and Jolie’s lawyers, and so yesterday the actors decided to sue. The couple “unequivocally” say that the story was false, and appear to be suing not for just for libel, but also for “misuse of private information”, or privacy.
The action comes two years after the News of the World lost its privacy battle with Max Mosley when a high court judge ruled the F1 boss had a right to keep private his adventures with five dominatrices.
Pitt and Jolie began their legal action in the high court in London against News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary which publishes the News of the World. News Group is owned by Rupert Murdoch – as is 20th Century Fox, which made Mr and Mrs Smith, the film that gave the setting for Pitt and Jolie’s blossoming love affair six years ago.
Keith Schilling of Schillings, their London lawyers, said yesterday the allegations had been reproduced in other newspapers. “The News of the World has failed to meet our clients’ reasonable demands for a retraction of and apology for these false and intrusive allegations, which have now been widely republished by mainstream news outlets. We have advised them to bring proceedings, which they have now done.”
Schillings said the News of the World article contravened the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct, which states that a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion “once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and – where appropriate – an apology published”.
The law firm added that publication amounted to a serious misuse of private information; it was not required to disclose whether the information was true or false. “However in this case we can confirm unequivocally, and upon instructions, that the allegations published by the News of the World are false as well as intrusive,” the firm said.
The News of the World alleged on 24 January that the couple visited a lawyer to begin thrashing out a separation deal and that, last month, they signed a deal to divide their wealth. The article also claimed their children would live with Jolie but Pitt would have visitation rights; the separation would occur imminently.
Pitt and Jolie have three adopted children – Maddox, eight, Pax, six, and Zahara, five – as well as Shiloh, three, and 17-month-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
Schillings also said some media reports falsely identified a woman called Sorrell Trope as the couple’s lawyer. Trope gave a statement to Schillings saying: “I have had no contact from …. Angelina Jolie and/or Brad Pitt. I have never met your … clients or had any involvement with either of them. The foregoing is true with respect to all other members of this firm”.
The News of the World’s story went round the world but was rubbished by news outlets such as TMZ.com, which broke news of Michael Jackson’s death, and US celebrity magazine People.
Pitt and Jolie have never married. Pitt divorced Jennifer Aniston, in 2005 after five years of marriage. Jolie has been married twice, to actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton; both marriages ended in divorce.
A spokeswoman for the News of the World declined to comment.
In his action against the paper in 2008, Mosley was awarded £60,000 damages, after the judge, Mr Justice Eady, ruled: “The law now affords protection to information in respect of which there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, even in circumstances where there is no pre-existing relationship giving rise of itself to an enforceable duty of confidence.”
In 2008, the Daily Star had to apologise for a story headlined: “It’s Sven Giggle Eriksson. Laughing boss still a hit with the ladies.” The story said the former England manager “put on an irresistible charm show” as women queued to meet him. “Sven got so carried away with one … that his hand appeared to stray towards her bum.” Unfortunately, the lady in question was Lina, Eriksson’s daughter.
Also in 2008, Le Monde published a front-page apology to President Nicolas Sarkozy after a mix-up over the first names of his third wife and his second. “An unfortunate slip” had caused the French daily to report on antics of one Cecilia Bruni-Sarkozy: “We were of course referring to the wife of the head of state, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy,” explained the correction.
In 1988 the Sun ran a front-page apology under the headline SORRY ELTON, after it printed two false stories about the singer – one about him having sex with rent boys, and another accusing him of removing the voice boxes of his guard dogs because their barking kept him awake. Elton John was also awarded £1m in damages after suing in the high court.
The Sunday Mirror in 2003 claimed Victoria, below, and David Beckham had split up. The apology confirmed “that Victoria did not tell David to leave Spain, or that their marriage was over. David did not refuse to back down, and far from being in ruins, their marriage is very strong and they are as much in love as ever. They have not discussed a trial separation and there has been no row about the children’s schooling.”
In the Daily Mirror had to fall on its sword when showbiz reporter Fiona Cummins wrote, together with a photo, that Sienna Miller was seen drunkenly rolling on the floor at a children’s charity ball. The paper acknowledged she had not been drunk and the photo was of her playing on the floor with a seriously ill six-year-old child
Defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka to face coup attempt charge as row over election result takes dramatic turn
The defeated candidate in last month’s tense presidential election in Sri Lanka, General Sarath Fonseka, was arrested today at his office in Colombo and is to be charged with attempting a military coup to overthrow the government.
The sudden arrest of the 59-year-old former chief of Sri Lankan armed forces and the architect of their bloody but successful campaign against the Tamil Tigers last year, sparked fears of a widespread crackdown on opponents of the incumbent president, Mahindra Rajapakse.
A government spokesman confirmed that Fonseka had been arrested, saying he had been detained for “committing military offences”.
Later government minister Keheliya Rambukwella said Fonseka would be tried in a military court on charges of conspiring against the president and planning a coup while army chief.
“When he was the army commander and chief of defence staff and member of the security council, he had direct contact with opposition political parties, which under the military law can amount to conspiracy,” Rambukwella said.
“He’s been plotting against the president while in the military … with the idea of overthrowing the government,” he added.
Fonseka’s wife is reported to have confirmed the detention of her husband following an increase in the number of security forces deployed outside the hotel he used as an office during the day.
Allies of Fonseka described his arrest during the course of a planning meeting with political allies. Rauff Hakeem, leader of the Muslim Congress party, told Reuters that the general had been “dragged away in a very disgraceful manner in front of our own eyes”.
Fonseka appears to have resisted arrest. Mano Ganeshan, an opposition member of parliament, said the general was “forcibly carried away” after having objected to being arrested by military police rather than civilian officials.
“He was humiliated and disgraced in the way he was handled. We were just flabbergasted,” Ganeshan said.
Fonseka, who has repeatedly alleged that the elections were fraudulently won by Rajapakse, was planning to campaign in parliamentary polls due to be held by April.
Speculation about the detention of the general had mounted over the weekend with Sri Lankan newspapers reporting on Sunday that Rajapakse had sought legal advice from government lawyers about trying his political rival in a military court.
Hours before his arrest, Fonseka, who himself has been accused of a range of human rights abuses during the fighting against the Tamil Tigers last year, had said he was prepared to give evidence at international tribunals investigating the 25-year-long civil war. “I am definitely going to reveal what I know, what I was told and what I heard. Anyone who has committed war crimes should be brought into the courts,” the BBC reported him as saying.
Former head of Metropolitan police says elected police commissioners will not work and calls for bipartisan inquiry
Policing is becoming unaffordably expensive due to the failure of political parties to back cheaper alternatives to full-time police officers, the former Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Ian Blair will warn today. He will also call for politicians to put aside party divisions prior to the election and set up an all-party royal commission to agree a new role for the police.
Blair will renew his attack on Conservative proposals for elected police commissioners across the country, saying they raise the spectre of Sarah Palin-style figures sacking police commissioners to protect themselves and their families.
His remarks will come in a Political Quarterly lecture to be given tonight. He warns it is currently politically impossible for any home secretary to respond to the fall in crime by cutting police numbers.
“You can cut the cost of policing by cutting officer numbers but the political attachment to those numbers is so great that police leaders cannot do what obviously needs to be done, which is to cut the unit cost of policing by a replacing a lot of officers with cheaper alternatives. Policing is simply becoming unaffordable.”
He describes the 43 police forces in England and Wales as “so perilously close to the secret of the universe revealed in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and just as random,” and as needing either to be reorganised or reduced.
Blair was forced to stand down by London’s mayor, Boris Johnson. He warns that proposals for elected police commissioners with the power to hire and fire police chiefs, as advanced by the shadow home secretary Chris Grayling, are “entirely wrong”.
“The idea risks both the replacement of operational independence with compliance and acquiescence, and the replication of the populism and short-termism of American policing.
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